Arwe, also known as Wainaba, in Ethiopian mythology, is a serpent-king who rules for four hundred years before being destroyed by the founder of the

Solomonic dynasty The Solomonic dynasty, also known as the House of Solomon, was the ruling dynasty of the Ethiopian Empire formed in the thirteenth century. Its members claim lineal descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Tradition asserts ...

. His story comes in a number of versions, all of which have him as a tyrannical ruler who demands sacrifice. The myth is part of a wider tradition of serpent- or dragon-kings, such as the Babylonian dragon.

General outline

The veneration of Arwe, which was widespread, predates Christianity in Ethiopia, which became a state religion under

Ezana of Axum Ezana ( gez, ዔዛና ''‘Ezana'', unvocalized ዐዘነ ''‘zn''; also spelled Aezana or Aizan) was ruler of the Kingdom of Axum, an ancient kingdom located in what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia. (320s – c. 360 AD). He himself employed the ...

in the early 4th century. Arwe ("wild beast" in

Geʽez Geez (; ' , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient Ethiopian Semitic language. The language originates from what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturg ...

) is a snake-king who rules for four hundred years over the land that is to become Ethiopia. He is a giant serpent ("No, Arwe is not beyond the hill, for the hill you see is Arwe") to whom humans must sacrifice their virgin daughters and cattle to calm his endless hunger. He reigns with terror until he is defeated by a man who becomes the next ruler of the land, and his daughter becomes the

Queen of Sheba The Queen of Sheba ( he, מַלְכַּת שְׁבָא‎, Malkaṯ Šəḇāʾ; ar, ملكة سبأ, Malikat Sabaʾ; gez, ንግሥተ ሳባ, Nəgśətä Saba) is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brin ...

, and then the mother of

Menelik I Menelik I ( Ge'ez: ምኒልክ) was the claimed first Emperor of Ethiopia. According to Kebra Nagast, a 14th-century national epic, in the 10th century BC he is said to have inaugurated the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, so named because Menel ...

. It is believed by some Ethiopians that Arwe, or Wainaba, ruled after Aksumawi, who is the great-grandson of Noah and son of Itiopis according to the '' Book of Aksum''. Ethiopis, who was seventh in the ancestral lines, is also believed to be the twelfth direct descendant of Adam.

Variations

In one version of Arwe's myth, a stranger comes to the land where Arwe reigns and after seeing a woman cry over the fact that she has to give her daughter in sacrifice to the serpent, the man offers to kill the serpent. He requests the woman to provide him with a spotless white lamb and a bowl with juice from the poisonous ''

Euphorbia ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

'' tree. He faces the serpent and offers him the lamb and the juice, which Arwe accepts not knowing it will be the cause of his death. After Arwe is finally defeated, the people offer the man to become their ruler, a position he gladly accepts until he is ready to let his daughter Makeda reign. She becomes the Queen of Sheba, and its capital city is Axum. Some versions of the tale state that the man who killed Arwe was named Agabos. In another version of this myth, Wainaba, the serpent ruler, is on his way traveling north from the district Tamben to Aksum when a man called Angabo promises the Aksumites to kill the serpent in exchange for the throne. He applied various forms of magic to the road the serpent traveled on, including an iron instrument that he buried under the road. He attacked Wainaba with fire, and burns him to death. Legend has it he was buried in May Wayno, where his grave still is.

The serpent and the saints

Some versions of the myth clearly combine pre-Christian and Christian elements, in order to make Christianity (specifically the

Nine Saints The Nine Saints were a group of missionaries who were important in the initial growth of Christianity in what is now Ethiopia during the late 5th century. Their names were Abba Aftse, Abba Alef, Abba Aragawi, Abba Garima (Isaac, or Yeshaq), Abba ...

) victorious over a pagan monster. One of these is found among tribes in the north and published by Enno Littmann in 1904: the

Tigre people The Tigre people ( tig, ትግረ ''tigre'' or ''tigrē'') are an ethnic group indigenous to Eritrea. They mainly inhabit the lowlands and northern highlands of Eritrea. History The Tigre are a nomadic agro-pastoralist community living in ...

worship a dragon; families sacrifice their oldest daughter as well as mead and milk. When it's the turn of Eteye Azeb ("Queen of the South"), a family's oldest child, she is tied to a tree for the dragon to take, but seven saints sit down in the tree's shade. They wonder if she's

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also call ...

but she explains she is a human, to be sacrificed. When the dragon comes, two of the saints hesitate but the third, Abba Mentelit, attacks him and then all seven kill the dragon with a cross. Some blood from the dragon lands on the girl's heel, which becomes like the heel of an ass. When she returns to her village, her people send her away because they think she ran away, but the next day she shows them the body, whereupon they make her the leader of the village, and she has a maiden appointed as her second. Her deformity is cured when she visits Solomon with her second, both disguised as men. He tricks them both, and has sex with them; her son is Menelek. This version was written down in 1902, and had been retold by a Tigre man from a village north of

Keren, Eritrea Keren ( Tigrinya and Tigre: ), historically known as Sanhit,Shinn, David & al. "Hewitt Treaty" in the ''Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia''p. 214 is the second-largest city in Eritrea. It is situated around northwest of Asmara at a ...

. Littmann notes the ubiquity of the dragon in various mythologies of (what he then called) the

Semitic peoples Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.Babylonian dragon, and especially among the people of Ethiopia. Many Ethiopic sources place "King Arwe" at the beginning of history. The Tigre variant, with its seven saints (originally they were the nine saints who missionized in Ethiopia in the 5th century), thus add a Christian turn to a pre-Christian tradition, and the Christian saints deliver the world from a great evil. Littmann identifies the saint Mentelit with

Abba Pantelewon Abba Pentelewon (Pantaleon) (c. 470 – 522) was a Christian monk who is traditionally credited with founding Pentalewon Monastery located on the top of Mai Qoho Hinorthwest of Axum in Tigray, Ethiopia. He is one of the members of the group kno ...

. Other instances of the nine saints killing the dragon are found in a hymn to Abuna Aregawi, and a very detailed version is found in a homily of Abba Garima.Littman 20-21.

References

Notes

References

*{{cite book , first=Enno , last=Littmann , title=The Legend of the Queen of Sheba in the Tradition of Axum , location=Leiden , publisher=Brill , year=1904 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5F8MAAAAIAAJ , pages= Mythological kings Rulers of Ethiopia Sheba